The Government has introduced over 20 pages of amendments for the National Broadband Network legislation, with the intention of delivering a universal wholesale price for consumers ahead of the network’s construction.
But some of the amendments have been rejected by the Coalition, with opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull saying the Government is now clearly using the network to supply services to non-ISP institutions.
The comments come as the NBN has been thrust back into the spotlight this week as the Government hurries to pass legislation through Parliament and finalise its $11 billion deal with Telstra.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy announced the amendments yesterday. They cover a number of matters, including the formation of a national wholesale price, and the exemption of Telstra and the Government itself from stamp duty charges.
“By requiring that new fibre networks which serve residential and small business premises and built after January 1, 2011 to supply services on an open access, wholesale-only basis, like the NBN, will mean people can have access to the same high-quality broadband services in terms of performance and retail competition, regardless of the network provider,” Conroy said.
However, there is a bigger issue, according to the coalition. One of the main concerns at the moment is that the NBN will act as a retailer, offering services to either developers or companies, putting it in competition with other RSPs.
Turnbull says these amendments confirm those concerns, as the current legislation would allow the NBN to sell network access to a company, which could them construct its own private network.
“This makes an absolute mockery of the claim NBN is a wholesale provider of telecommunications services. It would mean that the private sector telcos would run a very real risk of being limited to the small business and residential markets.”
Telsyte director of research consulting Chris Coughlan says this is one of the biggest concerns around the construction of the NBN, as ISPs are worried they will need to compete with the Government entity itself.
“The issue for larger corporates is that there is nothing to stop them fundamentally saying, ‘I want to be an RSP’, buy a carrier license and some services from the NBN, an in essence make up their own network.”
Although he says it would only be larger companies that would be able to do this, he says even utility companies could in theory build their own networks and take business away from other small retail ISPs.
“It allows them to do other types of work,” Coughlan says.
Turnbull said in a statement the concern is that even Government departments could do this, leading the NBN to becoming not only a monopoly, “but also in practical terms a monopoly provider of telecommunications services to corporates”.
This is the same concern that was recently brought to the Government by telco giants Telstra and Optus during Senate inquiries.
Turnbull says the only answer to the mess is having the Government confirm the NBN will only act as a wholesale provider – and he wants a Coalition amendment passed saying just that.
“The only chance of this misguided vision for NBN not being realised is if the Coalition’s amendments to keep NBN within genuine wholesale only boundaries are passed by the Senate.”
Coughlan says the amount of debate around the NBN is increasing as the actual rollout grows closer – the concern over more technical issues has grown stronger in the past few weeks – and says this is a sign the construction of the network itself is ramping up quickly.
“The rubber is hitting the road, so to speak, with the NBN… and these details have a significant impact on participants in the industry going forward from now.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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